Earth Day

Puck and El Oso sat at the kitchen table over breakfast. Puck, who had already finished most of his meal, was not interested in concluding with the rest of his fried eggs:

“I’m not hungry, Dad.”

“That’s what your mouth is saying to your stomach,” El Oso role-played for him. “Your mouth is all like, ‘I’m not hungry anymore. So you don’t get any more food, Stomach!’ And your stomach is all like, ‘That’s the meanest thing ever!’”

So our First Grader was at least entertained, even if the eggs were never eaten.

Puck collected a handful of all the orange markers from the drawing basket on the table during math, ogling over his favorite color. He lifted the orange Sharpie up to his face to look carefully at it:

“Orange is my policy. I love orange.”

I don’t remember how we segwayed into the following conversation, but Puck had to know several things before our morning ended, including whether or not the government was monitoring us inside our home:

“Did they put secret cameras in our house?”

“Not that I know of. We live in the Midwest. No one cares what we do here.”

He seemed satisfied with that reply. Maybe it was the idea of secretiveness that inspired the next thought process:

“You know what, Mom? Want to know why we children behave more for grandparents than parents?”

“Sure.”

“The secret is … when we are with grandparents, we won’t get reported. It’s our little secret, us children.”

Not any more, it isn’t.

A couple of hours later Puck received a clean bill of health for his seven year-old check-up at the pediatrician’s:

“Probably the healthiest kid in the whole practice,” Dr. Box congratulated him.

I can handle that. And the continued prediction that Puck should land somewhere north of six feet tall.

Back in the neighborhood, Anna and Eddie were just off the bus. Anna walked through the front door with a fat wedge of pumpkin pie in hand. They all got busy adding onto the house in the backyard, before and after dinner. I think my roll of Scotch tape got lost in the process of anchoring a new roof in place. The cost of allowing innovation, I suppose.